State Supreme Court Justice Bobbe Bridge will quit the bench at the end of the year to run a youth advocacy organization she founded with her husband, ending an eight-year tenure on the high court that was marred by a drunken-driving arrest in 2003.

The disclosure Friday of her plans coincided with an announcement that the charitable McArthur Foundation has selected King, Pierce and four other counties in the state to share a $10 million grant to improve juvenile justice systems under a program that will be coordinated by the Bridges' private, non-profit organization, the Center for Children and Youth Justice.

"The timing is just perfect," Bridge, 62, said of her decision to switch jobs.

Bridge has a long record of activism on issues of juvenile justice and child welfare, and said she had been planning to move to the center on her eventual retirement from the bench. She and her husband, Jonathan Bridge of Ben Bridge Jewelers, started the organization last year and head its board of directors.

"There's just a lot of work to do, and I would just like to focus on it full time," Justice Bridge said.

Some Oregon Residents Upset at Prospect of Pumping Their Own GasBuzz 60

Doug Baldwin playcallingBy Michael-Shawn Dugar, SeattlePI

Van Crashes Into Pedestrians Injuring SixAssociated Press

US military to accept transgender recruits after Trump drops appealEuronews

Snow on Christmas Eve, 2017Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Ice carving at WinterfestSeattle Post-Intelligencer

Amtrak derails near OlympiaGrant Hindsley / SeattlePI

Golden retriever meets Darth Vader and EwokSeattle Post-Intelligencer

"She's been a very stalwart member of our court," Chief Justice Gerry Alexander said. "She's hard-working, she's bright, she's been a really reliable member of our court. We are all going to miss her. "

During his re-election campaign last year, Alexander was attacked in political advertisements for supporting Bridge after her drunken-driving arrest in February 2003.

Bridge was charged after a witness saw her swerving in her car along a street near her home in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood. Her Mercedes-Benz grazed a parked pickup truck, knocking off its side mirror.

Bridge failed two breath tests, which registered her blood-alcohol level at nearly three times the legal limit. Later, in court, Bridge was placed on probation for three years and accepted deferred prosecution on the drunken-driving charge, meaning that if she complies with court-ordered conditions, including abstaining from alcohol, the charge will be dismissed in 2008. A separate hit-and-run charge was dropped by prosecutors. Bridge also was formally reprimanded by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

The arrest came a few months after Bridge's election in 2002 to a six-year term on the high court. She was initially appointed to fill a vacancy on the court in 1999 by then-Gov. Gary Locke and won election to the unexpired term in 2000.

When Bridge steps down at the end of the year, Gov. Chris Gregoire will appoint her successor. The non-partisan seat will be up for election for a full term in 2008.

Bridge is regarded as part of the nine-member court's moderate-to-liberal majority and, had she run for re-election in 2008, she likely would have been the target of the same conservative interests that poured a record amount of money into the effort to unseat Alexander.

Although Bridge on Friday decried big spending on judicial elections and negative campaigning that focuses on issues irrelevant to jurisprudence, she said that was not a factor in her decision to resign.

"I loved being a judge, and it was a very difficult decision to leave at all," she said.

Bridge spent 10 years on the King County Superior Court bench before her appointment to the Supreme Court, including three years as chief judge of Juvenile Court. She is currently co-chairwoman of the Supreme Court Commission on Children in Foster Care and chairwoman of a statewide project addressing domestic violence and child abuse. She has served on numerous boards and commissions concerned with child and family issues.

Bridge will direct the day-to-day operations of the Center for Children and Youth Justice beginning next year. She learned of the McArthur commitment to the organization several months ago, but the size of the grant and the county recipients were disclosed only recently. Washington is one of four states selected for participation in the McArthur program.